The follow-up care of patients with total ablation
of the thyroid also appears inadequate.
Some had stopped
theirsmedicine because of side reactions and appear hypothyroid to my eyes.
No regular follow-up has been pursued
to allow change of thyroid medication, or increase or
decrease of dosage.
A general feeling of distrust of the
Treaty Trust and Atomic Energy Commission physicians is
wide-spread among the Marshallese.
The people of the
Marshall
Islands
I spoke to have no-great faith in these
physicians, do not consider them devoted to their interests,
but instead representing the interests of the Atomic
Energy Commission or the Trust Treaty authorities, and
were reluctant to place their health in their hands, -although they finally did so for want of any other ade-
Guate facilities supplied by the Treaty Trust Organization.
I am also impressed with the failure of the
physicians to communicate findings and prognosis to the
people of these islands.
Each patient is entitled to
have his
questions answered.
cf the lesion discovered,
nosis
should be given.
and,
Ee
should be told the nature
if he asks for it,
The doctor
should,
a prog-
when he can,
inform the patient of the cause of his illness.
These
basic rights of a patient have been in larce part ignored
in the Marshall Islands, and 1 found very few Narshallese
who were acquainted with the nature of their pathology.
I
reject firmly the thought that the people were too
primitive or uneducated, to absorb such information,
since I have found this not to be true.
Among them are
educated and intelligent leaders who would be able to
@igest such information and form their own conclusions
about what the islands,
its vecetation,
its culture has suffered.
its people,
and
I have planned conversations with Americans in this
area of various expertise who would be useful in understanding the course of food-chain radiation and its injuries,
as well as the complex picture of fallout injury.
Some
of these
conversations have been started,
correspondence is already uncer way.
and some of the
I am writing to you instead of delivering an oral
report so that you may use
this written report to demon.
iil
-